Every Eddie Murphy Movie, Ranked
Updated January 2023 to add You People.
After a successful stand-up career in the 1970s and a wildly acclaimed run on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s, Eddie Murphy launched his film career (while still on SNL) in 1982 and has been appearing on the big screen fairly steadily in the decades since, starring in over 40 titles. To date, Murphy's films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide, but only occasionally has the material on screen matched Murphy's comedic talents—and, even when it has, reviews have sometimes been less positive than you might expect. In the gallery above, we rank all of his films to date (including his newest, Coming 2 America) from worst to best by Metascore, which reflects the consensus of professional critics for each film.
The first sequel to Murphy's 1984 hit Beverly Hills Cop was another box office success, grossing $300 million worldwide. But it was far from another critical success. Though he gets the action part of the action-comedy formula down, director Tony Scott (fresh off of Top Gun) didn't generally work in comedy, and BHC2 doesn't really work as a comedy; critics found it lacking in laughs while also trying a bit too hard to ape the first film's formula.
“Beverly Hills Cop II is practically a carbon copy of the original movie, which, at the very least, exhibited a glimmer of invention. The sequel is superior only in terms of technique. It looks slicker and sounds better; more like a music video. Its tone is fractionally more reserved. And there isn't the unsettling clash between humor and violence.” —Hal Lipper, Tampa Bay Times